Unpleasant Tea on Christmas
by gryffinclaw-witch
Summary: The first Christmas Eve after the war's end is spent at the Burrow. There are new jumpers, vegetable dishes, and unread books. . . . Despite the festivities, Ron somehow manages to mess up Hermione's gift. (Ron/Hermione. Rated T for minor mentions of alcohol. Cute one-shot.)


"You don't have to wear it, if you don't want to," said Ron. "I stopped wearing mine when I was fifteen."

Hermione smiled. "No, I'll wear it."

"She kept sending them," Ron continued, "because I never asked her to stop." He looked at the shirt lying across his bed. "After last Christmas, I was expecting she would have given up on it."

"Really," insisted Hermione, with grinning again at the jumper she was holding. Embroidered with an orange _H_, and red like Ron's always were, except the color wasn't as dark. The wool was soft on the outside, but over the years Ron had complaints of how itchy the fabric felt. It was the only part she wasn't looking forward to. "I like it, Ronald. I'll wear it."

"Okay, well," he mumbled, rubbing the backs of his dry knuckles, "I'm only offering advice."

Hermione didn't take it. She thought Molly's gift was kind. The woman had always assured her that she was part of the family, but of course, the statement couldn't be fact until she had a Weasley jumper of her own. She wondered how long Molly had been planning to give her one. Years, perhaps. She seemed like the type of person who would do that.

Harry poked his head around the wall that separated the living room from the kitchen.

"Dinner's almost ready," he told them.

Everybody had opened their holiday presents tonight, on Christmas Eve, because most of them wanted to sleep late into the morning the following day. Harry and Hermione hadn't fussed about it. They were pleasant guests and were compliant, and the gifts were much appreciated. After wrapping paper was strewn across the floor, and after Molly instructed Percy and Ron to clean up (and after Ginny picked up the mess herself, once Ron had started to complain about how he was given that task year after year), she went into the kitchen to finish cooking the meal.

"We'll be right there," Hermione said, with a warm smile directed at Harry, which he reciprocated before disappearing again.

"The food is always the same, too," said Ron when they were alone.

Hermione got to her feet. "Half of Christmas is about tradition."

Ron followed suit. "What's the other half about?"

She smiled again and tugged his arm toward the kitchen. "Eating more than you need to."

Hermione's grip on his wrist had loosened and fallen apart by the time they were in the next room. She grabbed silverware from the countertop and went into the dining room to set the table. Ron, however, stayed behind for a minute and caught his brother's attention.

"I need your opinion, George," said Ron, but he hated asking for it. George stopped at the edge of the kitchen. Ron held out his maroon-clothed present. "I'm too old to still get these, aren't I? Hasn't Mum gotten tired of making them yet?"

Bill, walking past with a dish of assorted vegetables, leaned into the conversation. "She still makes me one every year," he said. "You'll be getting those for a while."

"All her kids are grown," George pointed out to Ron. "There's nobody to take care of anymore. She knits so she doesn't get bored."

"Exactly," Bill agreed with a small smile. He nodded at the folded, lonesome jumper that balanced in Ron's palm. "Now put it on. It'll make her happy."

Bill walked off with the vegetables and brought them to the table. George followed and took a seat in the chair nearest the doorway. Ron frowned and tugged the irritating shirt over the one he was wearing. Upon Hermione's request, he helped carry two bowls of pudding into the dining room, and set it down next to the goose.

Dinner was lighthearted, filled with conversations that Ron listened to more than participated in. Percy was at his left side and Hermione was at his right, and were all seated near the end of the table. Harry was directly across from Ron and one chair over. Ginny was next to him, which didn't come as any surprise. Arthur was at the head, standing as he poured himself a glass of red wine, and was in the midst of telling an anecdote that Ron had no memory of. He assumed that if he hadn't been told it before, it wasn't drastically important.

That night, he found Hermione in the family room, alone in the darkness. She sat facing away from the window, so the moonlight was distributed across the pages of a book on her lap. It was open, but she wasn't reading it. The Christmas tree was not lit, as it had been hours earlier. Hermione was staring outside.

Ron grinned. Usually she noticed him before he entered the room, when his footsteps were coming downstairs, making the staircase creak every alternate step. Tonight, that wasn't the case, even though he wasn't being any quieter than he normally tried to be. She was simply lost in thought.

For a few seconds, he watched Hermione watch the snow as it fell. He liked the way she looked, with half her face illuminated and the other half in shadow, as she sat on the carpet in her new jumper that she seemed to love, even though Ron gave her pity for wearing it. Her hair was tied back. She must not mind the cold, he realised, if she was leaving her ears exposed like that. Her ears never got as red as Ron's could.

He stepped further into the room and pretended to peer curiously through the window. "It's still cold out?" he teased, and stood a distance away from Hermione with his hands in his pockets.

"It's only supposed to get colder," Hermione said. "The storm will only last a few days, though, I think."

"You think a lot."

"Very observant, Ronald. I guess I do."

He sat on the arm of the couch next to Hermione, trying to reason why she wasn't sitting on it herself and preferred the floor, but she was rather odd sometimes. He didn't question it. He knew from experience that it occasionally saved the day when her train of thought edged a little way off its track.

A bigger question, Ron supposed, was why she was in his living room—otherwise empty, except for him—at nearly eleven o'clock at night. If she had been reading, that would have been fine, expected even. But she wasn't, in fact—it was more like she was simply posing with the book.

"Why aren't you sleeping?" he asked, trying not to make it sound as if he was chastising her, which he wasn't. It was simply interest.

"I couldn't," said Hermione, but it wasn't sadly.

He waited for her to clarify.

"Well—I mean—" she scoffed with a smile, stalling as she searched for the best words to describe it—"it's _Christmas Eve_. Haven't you ever felt too excited to fall asleep on Christmas Eve, and had to stay up late? Okay, maybe you never did; maybe it was only Fred and George, so they could bewitch everyone's presents while they were in bed." Hermione felt a sting of shame at mentioning Fred's name, even though Ron had been doing well in recent months to ignore the fact that Fred had ever existed at all. Still, she knew she had touched a raw nerve, and wanted to cringe, but forced herself to keep speaking, hoping that the idea of Fred would be hidden within the other words she was stringing together.

"I used to do it every year." Hermione, beaming, closed the book she was holding and sat up straighter. "I never opened anything that was beneath the tree, because I knew my parents trusted me not to. I'd just sort of look around, see if I could recognise anything, and then go upstairs again." She gave a breathy chuckle. "The next morning, they didn't know."

She stopped. She had touched a raw nerve of her own. Of course they didn't know. _They don't know_. They don't know that their only daughter meddled with their memories. They don't know that she changed their names and allowed them to go to Australia. They don't know. _They still don't. They may never._

Ron was unsure as to what she was thinking about, but a few possible ideas showed themselves to him. Sensing her uneasiness, he stood up from the couch. "Can I make you some tea?" he suggested.

Hermione nudged a mug next to her. "I've got some."

He was certain that it had gone cold. "Would you like some more?"

"That would be wonderful," she said, glad to focus on another subject. "Thank you, Ronald."

For several minutes he was stuck in the kitchen, busying himself with getting the dishes and pouring more water. Hermione could hear him catch the kettle right before it started to whistle, because he didn't want to wake anyone else in the house. She heard clinking noises as he placed a fresh mug on the counter and stirred something into it with a spoon.

He reentered the living room and carried the tea to her. "Here."

Hermione thanked him again and took the first, small drink from it. Quickly she brought it away, and out of consideration forced herself to swallow what she had taken from it.

"Is it bad?" Ron raised his eyebrows and took the tea back. Despite her insistence that she liked it, he knew she was lying to spare his feelings.

"No," Hermione said persistently. "It just . . . What flavour is that?"

Ron shrugged. "I didn't check the box," he admitted. Seeing that she was ready to ask, he said, "But it's tea, I know that much. It came from the tea chest."

"Okay." She believed him, and she couldn't blame him, because she knew that he didn't make tea often.

"Did it surprise you?"

They were unusual words to hear, but they were honest. "Yes," she said. "I was surprised."

"Surprised?"

"Surprised," Hermione repeated, and then she added, "but not displeased."

Ron sipped from the same mug. A moment later, it would have been spit right back out if he hadn't had the sense to keep his mouth closed.

"Really?" he said, making a sour face. "Because I'm displeased."


End file.
